Here's an explanation of how I would estimate your grade at this point early in the semester.  The estimate tries to guess what your grade will be at the end of the semester if you keep doing as you have been doing up to this point.  All you have at this point is a single quiz grade.  Most of your have probably also turned in a 1S1P report or two and may have done some of the Optional (extra credit) Assignments.

First I would calculate your Quiz #1 percentage grade.  Here's the formula:

Here's an example calculation using the average score for the class,  -52 pts.


Next multiply the Quiz #1 percentage grade times 3 and add 96% (see Note 1 at the bottom of the page)


The 96% is a guess at your final writing percentage grade.  I assumed that you will earn 45 1S1P pts by the end of the semester and that you earn an average score of 32 out of 40 on the experiment report (you can of course do better than that).

Divide the total above by 4 (see Note 2 at the bottom of the page)


This is the average of your quiz and writing grades.  The last step is to add any extra credit points that you've earned to this total.  The 2.5% value below assumes you'll do most of the Optional Assingments (if you do every single one you can earn at least 3% extra credit)


This is you grade estimate.

Sometime after Quiz #2 and after the Assignment #1 reports are all graded, I will ask my computer to figure out everyone's grade and will handout a grade summary in class.

If you think your quiz scores are going to be high enough that you won't have to take the Final Exam you should:
Note 1 - multiply the Quiz #1 score by 4 in this step
Note 2 - divide the sum by 5 in this step.